Love a Dark Rider

by Shirlee Busbee

  A sound, a shriek, a moan, he didn't know what it was, spun his head around and to his horror, amidst the leaping flames beneath the loft, he saw Ann suddenly appear, stumbling awkwardly toward the ladder. Fire was all around her, her figure clearly outlined against the flames, but she seemed to be as yet untouched as she staggered erratically along the edge of the loft, clutching her head and trying desperately to escape.

  It was her cry that had caught Yancy's attention, her terrified cry that had also alerted Tom, who was just rising from the ground, the ladder next to him. He stood there uncertainly for a moment, his maniacal gaze swinging undecidedly back and forth between Yancy and Ann. Then with a bellowed 'Wo! No! You will not escape!" he flung himself against the ladder and scurried up into the loft.

  Transfixed by the ghastly scene that was playing itself out before him, Yancy lay motionless by the base of the bam doors, the smoke swirling in ghostly tendrils around him, his gaze locked on the two figures illuminated by the fire. Dimly he was aware of Sara's voice, of the voices of Bartholomew and Esteban and the others carrying through the night, and he knew that help was on

  the way ... for him, but not for Ann and Tom . . . never for Ann and Tom. . . .

  Cursing her, Tom finally reached his wife, pushing her backward toward the flames. Ann fought him with the fear-driven strength of a wild woman and, their bodies locked together in a deadly struggle, they swayed from side to side, utterly oblivious of their surroundings. The back third of the bam was in flames; the posts which supported the loft high above the ground began to list dangerously as the voracious fire weakened and consumed them. Even when the floor of the loft tilted drunkenly as post after post gave way and crumpled into the raging fire beneath them, Ann and Tom were still bound together in their lethal battle, neither able to overcome the other. Suddenly, with a shriek of splitting wood and a thunderous boom, the loft collapsed into the pitiless inferno below, great tongues of flames shooting high into the air, glowing embers streaking in all directions, and the two figures were seen no more.

  Held totally mesmerized by the horrific scene before him, Yancy stared numbly at the spot where the Shelldrakes had disappeared, hardly aware of the shouts coming from outside the bam. It was only when, with a solid thud, the doors were rammed from outside did he realize what was happening. He had just enough time to roll out of the way before the doors burst open with a great crash, and blessed, cool, life-giving air mshed into the bam. Groggy from the blow to his head and the smoke he had inhaled, Yancy was only partially conscious of what was going on around him, but almost immediately Sara's voice, the most loving sound in the world to him, drifted to him and he breathed in her sweet scent. And then there were hands, many strong, eager hands, pulling him from the bam, pulling him from death into life—life that was all the more precious because Sara was beside him, her breast against his cheek, her lips on his brow.

  EPILOGUE

  Heart's Ease

  Mal^e channels for the stream of love

  Where they may broadly run,

  And love has overflowing streams

  To fill them every one.

  The Law of Love — Richard Chenevix Trench

  26

  Despite the bucket brigade that Bartholomew organized the instant they had determined that Yancy would survive his ordeal, the bam could not be saved and the night sky was lit with scarlet tongues of fire. His head cradled against Sara's warm breast, from his position lying on the ground under one of large pecan trees a prudent distance from the blaze, Yancy grimly watched the leaping flames, the leaping flames that were to have formed his funeral pyre.

  Her skirts spread out around her, her arms wound tightly around him, Sara watched the fire, too, reliving those chilling moments when they had all realized that the bam doors were securely barred on the inside and that Yancy was trapped amid that blazing inferno. She hadn't known then if he was dead or alive, but as long as she lived, she would never forget that jubilant second when they had found him and dragged him coughing and wheezing from the bam, cheating the fire out of one last victim.

  Yancy stirred in her arms, and catching up one of her hands, he pressed an ardent kiss onto the palm. "You didn't do as I said, did you, sweetheart?"

  Sara smiled faintly, not taking her eyes off the fire, but her fingers moved gently near his mouth. "No, I'm afraid I didn't. You hadn't been gone from the hacienda more

  than a minute before I went racing to find Bartholomew and Esteban and explained the situation. I was firmly convinced that you were in grave danger and that, no matter how prepared you were, things could go wrong. / wasn't willing to take any chances with your life!"

  His gaze never leaving the blazing bam, watching as with a great shower of flames and sparks the roof finally collapsed, he murmured, "I'm glad that at least one of us was thinking clearly! Otherwise . . ."

  Sara's arms tightened around him. "Don't say it! Oh, God, Yancy, I was so scared—I just knew that Hyrum and Ann planned to kill you and that there wasn't a moment to lose!" Her voice thickened. "Esteban and I wasted precious seconds trying to determine Hyrum's whereabouts, and when we discovered Juan and Rogerio gagged and tied up in his house, I was frantic to get to the bam!" She hesitated, then asked in hard tones, "Were they in there?"

  Yancy nodded slowly. "All of them. They're all dead."

  "What do you mean by all of them?"

  Wearily he said, "Hymm and Ann did intend to kill me, but Tom thwarted their plans and decided to adapt Hymm's original plans to murder me and marry you for his own designs. He was in there with them."

  Sara gasped and pushed him away so that she could look into his face. "Are you telling me that Tom was behind all this?"

  Seeing Bartholomew and Esteban start their way and feeling more in command of himself, Yancy rose slowly to his feet and reached out a hand for Sara. "Yes, he was. He killed Hyrum—and planned for Ann and me to die in the bam fire, thereby accomplishing several things at once."

  As Sara stared at him in horrified astonishment, Yancy tumed to the two men who had approached them and said casually, "Well, gentlemen, it appears that is one

  bam we don't have to worry about repairing, wouldn't you say?"

  In the dying light of the fire, they nodded, their somber expressions fading a little at his easy tone. It was Bartholomew who said, "You know, I hadn't thought of it exactly that way, but I believe you're right!" He cast Yancy a long look and asked quietly, "You okay?"

  Yancy nodded and, his arm around Sara's waist, he replied, "I'm fine. Get someone to take charge of everything here and you and Esteban come to the hacienda. I have a long and complicated tale to tell you."

  A half hour later, they were all gathered in the courtyard of the hacienda, the smell of smoke clinging to their clothes, their faces still streaked with soot. Sara and Yancy, Bartholomew and Tansy, and Maria and Esteban were seated comfortably around the table, and the others listened in thunderstruck horror as Yancy revealed all that he had learned during those perilous moments in the bam with Tom. There was a shocked, stunned silence when he finished speaking.

  "It was Tom Shelldrake who put the rattlesnake in my bed?" Sara finally asked in incredulous tones.

  Yancy nodded. "You apparently had mentioned to him a conversation you overheard the night before Margaret died, and something you said made him believe that you knew he had killed Margaret. His first thought was to shut you up as soon as possible, without, I might add, drawing attention to himself. It was only when that failed and he'd had time to think about it that he realized that killing you was the last thing he wanted to do. And I guess, in the meantime, your manner had reassured him that you were unaware of the importance of what you had overheard."

  "And the incident with the bull?" Bartholomew asked grimly. "Who was responsible for that? Surely not Shelldrake?"

  Yancy's mouth twisted. "No, I think we can safely assume that it was Hyrum who shot my horse out from underneath me. It's possible, since Tom wasn't the cripple we a
ll thought he was, that he had concealed himself in the brush and taken advantage of the situation, but I doubt it—and he never alluded to it, despite being very eager to tell me everything else!"

  ]n the early hours of the morning the small group finally broke up, and by the time they all sought out their various beds, the subject of Ann and Hyrum's dastardly plots, as well as Tom Shelldrake's confession of murdering Margaret and opportunistic schemes, had been minutely dissected and thoroughly discussed. Despite their best intentions to put the distasteful incident behind them, it was days before they could stop talking about it, weeks before Sara stopped waking up suddenly in the middle of the night and desperately reaching out to touch Yancy and reassure herself that he was alive and well and lying at her side. There was, however, one unpleasant task that had to be dealt with before the entire topic could be put away forever— someone had to go through the personal effects of Hyrum and the Shelldrakes and dispose of them.

  Yancy volunteered to tackle Hyrum's few belongings, and Tom's as well, if Sara would see to the disposal of Ann's things. Although her first inclination was to let someone else do it, Sara made a face at her husband and reluctantly agreed. And so it was, one morning a few weeks later, that Yancy discovered Sara sitting on a chair in the house where Tom and Ann had lived, a small, locked iron box on her lap.

  "What's in that?" Yancy asked as he walked up to her.

  "I don't know," Sara replied with a frown. "I've looked and looked, but I can't find a key among her belongings that will unlock it." She looked across at her

  husband. "Why in the world would she keep it locked anyway?"

  Yancy quirked a brow, "Love letters from Hyrum, maybe?"

  Sara wrinkled her nose. "I suppose."

  At first, after Yancy had made short work of the lock, it appeared that he had been right—there were several letters neatly folded in envelopes crammed inside the iron box. Distaste clear on her expressive features, Sara picked up one of the envelopes and, turning it over in her hand, said, "I have no intention of reading these!" She started to pitch the offending item into the fireplace, to be burned later, when something about the writing caught her eye. Puzzled, she looked at the envelope again and suddenly gasped. "This is one of Sam's letters to youl How in the world . . . ?" Her eyes widened and in shocked comprehension she stared at Yancy. "Oh! Of course! Ann or Hyrum must have intercepted them, not wanting you to appear and disrupt their original scheme until Hyrum was sure of me."

  His brows snapped together and wordlessly he took the envelope from Sara, his name, written in his father's hand, leaping out at him from the front of the envelope. "More than likely, that's exactly what happened," Yancy muttered as, his face revealing nothing, he removed the letter inside and began to read it. When he finished, he looked away from Sara for a second and said gruffly, "You're right. It is one of Sam's letters to me."

  With dawning enlightenment Sara stared down at the half-dozen or so envelopes now lying in her lap. "You never received even one of his letters, did you?" she asked in low, remorseful tones.

  Yancy shook his head, and glancing over at her, his emotions once more under control, he said dryly, "If you'll remember, I told you that I hadn't."

  Sara looked uncomfortable and admitted unhappily, "I didn't believe you—I thought you were lying for your own ends."

  "Considering your appalling opinion of me, I wonder you ever married me," he retorted with a slight edge to his voice.

  Springing up from her chair, the letters flying, Sara flung her arms around his neck and kissed him at the comer of his mouth. A beguiling twinkle in her green eyes, she said softly, "But that was before you took my innocence and blackmailed me into marriage and I learned to love you!"

  Yancy laughed reluctantly and pulled her close. "I guess," he admitted huskily, "that we both acted badly at times."

  "Mmm, that we did," Sara said against his mouth. "But that's all behind us now, isn't it?"

  ''For Dios, yes!" Yancy said forcefully as his lips found hers, the letter falling from his hand as he lost himself in the heady magic that they created between themselves.

  In early October, Yancy and Sara, along with Esteban and Maria, prepared to return to del Sol, leaving Paloma in Bartholomew's capable hands. The trail drive to the new railhead at Abilene, Kansas, would commence the following week and Sara was inordinately pleased with the way her plans had been implemented by Yancy. As they rode away from Paloma toward del Sol, she was surprised to discover how little regret she felt at leaving Paloma, despite its quaint charm; how eager she was to return to del Sol; how she longed for the first sight of the gracious walled hacienda with its magnificent grounds; how deeply she yearned to return homel She didn't know when it had happened, when she had stopped thinking of Paloma as the only thing that was really hers, had stopped thinking of it as a place of refuge and had come

  to think of del Sol as home. ... So much had changed in the few months they had been at Paloma: these days she openly adored her tall, mesmerizing husband and knew without a doubt that he returned her feelings; her fears that he had married her to gain Paloma had been thoroughly banished; and she could now look forward to the birth of their first child next year, in late May, with joyful anticipation—no shadows or suspicions to cloud the now-longed-for event.

  Some hours later, as del Sol came into view, she was smiling softly to herself, and glancing across at her, Yancy inquired lightly, "And why are you looking like such a satisfied little cat?"

  She flashed him a dazzling look that left him nearly breathless. "Oh, I'm just so happy to be home!"

  Almost as one, they pulled their horses to a stop and let the others ride on ahead. His eyes fixed intently on her lovely face, Yancy asked quietly, "Are you really, Sara? Is del Sol really your home? No regrets?"

  She leaned over to him and brushed her lips against his. "Wherever you are is my home, and as for regrets . . . I have none, my dear husband. Not onel"

  Heedless of the dancing horses, he dragged her into his arms, pulling her from Locuela onto his horse. Draped across his thighs, held securely in his embrace, Sara gave herself up to his hungry kiss. Her slender body was pressed ardently next to his, her arms tightly clasped around his neck, and as the heady, passionate emotions he could arouse so effortlessly began to rise in her body, she blessed again the fates that had brought this arrogant, outrageous and oh-so-beloved dark rider into her life.

  They were both flushed and breathless when Yancy finally lifted his head, and with the sensuous promise of sweet delights to be shared through the years gleaming in his golden gaze, he said softly, "Let's go home, sweetheart. . . ."

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  LOVE A DARK RIDER 75213-l/$5.99 US/$6.99 Can

  Upon their first meeting, an undeniable spark flickers between Sara Rawlings and Yancy Cantrell. Seven years later, fate brings them together again, but their love is threatened by an inescapable past.

  WHISPER TO ME OF LOVE 75211-5/$4.95 US/$5.95 Can

  In Royce Manchester's glittering world of money and privilege, young Morgana discovered tne shocking secret of her true identity-entangling the wealthy American planter in a deadly skein of aristocratic family intrigue.

  THE SPANISH ROSE 89833-0/$5.50 US/$6.50 Can

  Although their families were bitter foes, nothing could distract Maria and Gabriel from their passion-as they raged against the one truth they feared to admit.. .and were unable to deny!

  75210-7/$5.50 US/$6.50 Can

  MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE EACH TIME WE LOVE THE TIGER LILY DECEIVE NOT MY HEART LADY VIXEN WHILE PASSION SLEEPS GYPSY LADY

  75212-3/$5.99 US/$6.99 Can 89499-8/$5.50 US/$6.50 Can 86033-3/$5.50 US/$6.50 Can 75382-0/$5.50 US/$6.50 Can 82297-0/$5.50 US/$6.50 Can 01824-l/$5.50 US/$6.50 Can

  Buy these books at your local bookstore or use this coupon for ordering:

  Mall to: Avon Books, Dept BP, Box 767, Rte 2, Dresden, TN 38225 C

  Please send me the book(s) I have checked above.

/>   Zi My check or money order— no cash or CODs please— for $ is enclosed

  (please add $1.50 to cover postage and handling for each book ordered— Canadian residents add 7% GST).

  Q Charge my VISA/MC Acct# Exp Date

  Minimum credit card order is two books or $6.00 (please add postage and handling charge of $1.50 per book — Canadian residents add 7% GST). For faster service, call 1-800-762-0779. Residents of Tennessee, please call 1-800-633-1607. Prices and numbers are subject to change without notice. Please allow six to eight weeks for delivery.

  Name

  Add ress

  City

  .State/Zip.

  Telephone No.,

  BUS 0394

  SHIRLEE BUSBEE

  The daughter of a career naval officer, SHIRLEE BUSBEE

  was bom in Cahfomia and attended high school in Morocco.

  After graduating from business school, she was employed

  as a legal secretary by Solano County, California, where she met

  Rosemary Rogers, who encouraged her to write. The result

  was GYPSY LADY, published by Avon Books in 1977,

  Busbee's first novel and first best seller. Busbee began writing

  full-time in 1979. Her second novel, LADY VIXEN (1980)

  was also a national best seller, as were all the titles that followed:

  WHILE PASSION SLEEPS (1983),

  DECEIVE NOT MY HEART (1984),

  THE TIGER LILY (1985),

  THE SPANISH ROSE (1986),

  MIDNIGHT MASQUERADE(1988),

  WHISPER TO ME OF LOVE (1991),

  and EACH TIME WE LOVE (1993).

  A recipient of the Silver Pen Award (1985) and Bronze Pen

  Award (1989) from Affaire de Coew Busbee is hard at work on

  her next novel. She lives in Califomia with her husband,

  Howard Leon Busbee.